- As forecasters warn of a possible strong El Niño this year, concerns are rising in India over its impact on monsoons, water sources and agriculture.
- A warming Pacific could disrupt the monsoon, though competing climate forces may soften or reshape the impact, scientists say.
- Experts say this is the time to prepare for water stress, agricultural disruption and uneven regional extremes.
Under the blazing May sun in Karnataka’s semi-arid Kolar district, farmer Nagaraj N. is digging yet another borewell to protect his mulberry and paddy fields. Groundwater levels are falling in Channasandra village, where he lives, and he is unsure whether local canals will supply enough water if the monsoon falters.
With forecasts hinting at a possible El Niño later this year, he is taking no chances. Across India, climate forecasters are watching the Pacific with similar unease.
As global weather agencies warn of a possible strong El Niño — a periodic warming of the tropical Pacific that can disrupt weather worldwide — concern is growing in India over a weaker monsoon, water stress and crop losses.
“The latest climate model predictions suggest the development of a severe El Niño over the Pacific Ocean,” said Madhavan Nair Rajeevan, Vice Chancellor of Atria University, Bengaluru, and former Secretary in the Ministry of Earth Sciences.
Some models indicate the event could become strong, with sustained warming in the central tropical Pacific exceeding 1.5°C. “Abnormally warm waters are already present below the ocean surface across the equatorial Pacific,” Rajeevan said, adding that this subsurface heat could further strengthen the event, with a likely peak around November or December 2026.
“The warming could be more than 2°C,” he told Mongabay-India.
The implications could be significant. “This event could have major impacts, including on the Indian monsoon. Not every El Niño leads to a poor monsoon, but if this becomes a severe event, we could see below-normal or deficient rainfall,” he said, warning of serious consequences for agriculture and water resources.
Pacific warming up
El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is a recurring climate pattern in the tropical Pacific that swings between warmer (El Niño) and cooler (La Niña) phases every two to seven years. Some events are mild and short-lived; others can trigger droughts, floods, heatwaves and ecosystem disruption across continents, including bleaching of corals.
Weather agencies including the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), track ENSO using satellites, ocean buoys and climate models. A key measure is the Oceanic Niño Index (ONI), based on sea surface temperature anomalies in the central Pacific. Sustained warming above 0.5°C signals El Niño, while sustained cooling below average by more than 0.5°C indicates La Niña. Very strong events can exceed 2°C, though the strength of an event does not always determine how severely individual regions will be affected.
After the recent La Niña, the tropical Pacific is currently in a neutral phase, but forecasters are seeing signs of a shift. The U.S. Climate Prediction Center (CPC) has issued an El Niño Watch.
The CPC predicts an 82% chance that a new El Niño pattern will form between May and July 2026. The likelihood rises to 96% by the three-month period of December 2026 to February 2027.
“While confidence in the occurrence of El Niño has increased since last month, there is still substantial uncertainty in the peak strength of El Niño,” CPC scientists noted.
The strength alone does not determine the impact of El Niño. “The strongest El Niño events in the historical record are marked by significant ocean-atmosphere coupling through the summer, and it remains to be seen whether this occurs in 2026,” said P. Vijaykumar, assistant professor in the Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Kerala.
“Stronger El Niño events do not ensure strong impacts; they can only make certain impacts more likely.”
Worldwide impacts
“Because the atmosphere is globally interconnected, warming in the Pacific can influence weather far beyond the Pacific,” Vijaykumar said. “El Niño is often linked to weaker monsoon rainfall in India, while La Niña tends to favour wetter conditions — though these patterns are not consistent in every event.”
History suggests the story can be even more complicated.
Vinita Damodaran, director of the Centre for World Environmental History at the University of Sussex, U.K., points to research led by historical climatologist Rob Allan, a long-time collaborator with the centre, showing that sometimes, though rarely, El Niño events do not follow the script.
During the powerful 1997–98 and 2023–24 El Niño events, the usual atmospheric circulation over Indonesia shifted westward over the equatorial Indian Ocean. As a result, India and Australia, often hit by severe drought during strong El Niño years, largely escaped the expected drying, even as many other parts of the world experienced more familiar impacts.
It remains to be seen whether 2026 will behave like one of these rarer events or a more canonical El Niño, Damodaran said. “If it follows the more classical pattern, history suggests we could see extremes of both flood and drought.”
Along with her late husband, environmental historian Richard Grove, founder of the CWEH, Damodaran has closely looked at El Niño’s historical consequences. The 1783 Chalisa famine, for instance, entered popular memory in India with folk songs, while prolonged droughts were punctuated by short bursts of destructive rainfall. In Madras, historical records note that 25.5 inches of rain fell in just three days in late October 1791.
As Grove wrote: “Throughout India the famines of 1788-94 resulted in very high mortality… In Bijapur (in Karnataka), for example, the year 1791 was known in oral history as ‘the Skull Famine’ when the ground was covered with the skulls of the unburied dead.”
Current concerns
With El Niño conditions potentially developing, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) has forecast all-India summer monsoon rainfall in 2026 at around 92% of the LPA (Long Period Average) — still within its “normal” range.
But the outlook remains uncertain.
“Regional outcomes remain uncertain, partly because a positive Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) is also likely to emerge in June–July 2026,” Vijaykumar said. IOD is a climate pattern driven by temperature differences across the equatorial Indian Ocean. A positive IOD — with warmer waters in the west and cooler waters near Indonesia — often boosts India’s monsoon.
“If both El Niño and a positive IOD develop together, their opposing influences could partly offset each other, keeping rainfall closer to average in some regions,” he said.
Climate change adds further uncertainty. “With multiple climate drivers at play, the 2026 monsoon could be difficult to forecast, though a stable outcome remains possible,” Vijaykumar added.
Rajeevan said El Niño’s impacts are not uniform. While much of India may see weaker rainfall and longer dry spells, parts of the Northeast could still receive normal to above-normal rainfall, including possible floods.
“India’s economy may be more resilient to monsoon shocks than in the past, but agriculture and water resources could still face serious consequences,” he said.
In Bengaluru, water conservation expert Vishwanath Srikantaiah warns that if the monsoon disappoints, water shortages — and even disputes over river water sharing — could follow.
A long-time advocate of restoring wells, tanks and groundwater recharge systems, he sees local storage as the best defence against uncertainty. He says the immediate response is simple: capture and conserve rainwater, especially during good pre-monsoon showers.
Rajeevan emphasises the need for preparedness, saying, “There is no need for panic, but this is the time to seriously formulate strategies to manage and minimise potential impacts on agriculture and water resources.”
Banner image: An Indian farmer wearing a raincoat walks past a paddy field during monsoon rains. Representative image. (AP Photo/Ashwini Bhatia, File)
Read more: [Explainer] What is El Nino? What factors affect the Indian summer monsoon?
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